Claude-SearchBot: Anthropic's AI search crawler
Anthropic's crawler for search quality in Claude.
- Free, no account.
- A few seconds.
- Nothing is stored.
Claude-SearchBot at a glance
Everything Anthropic documents about it, with links to the source.
- Operator
- Anthropic
- Type
- AI search and answers
- Used for
- Search results for Claude's answers
- Obeys robots.txt
- Yes. Anthropic documents that Claude-SearchBot follows robots.txt, so a rule for its token is honoured.
- robots.txt token
Claude-SearchBot- User-agent string
- Anthropic does not publish the full string. Match requests on the token Claude-SearchBot, and verify them against the IP list below.
- IP addresses
- claude.com/crawling/bots.json
- Documentation
- support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518
How to block Claude-SearchBot
Fetches the pages AI answers cite and link to. Blocking it keeps your pages out of those answers: no citation, no link.
Block the whole site
Add this group to robots.txt at the root of your site.
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Disallow: /
Block only some paths
List the paths; everything else stays open to Claude-SearchBot.
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /drafts/
How to verify Claude-SearchBot
Anyone can send a crawler's user-agent string. Where the request comes from is what proves it.
- 1
Find requests whose user agent contains "Claude-SearchBot" in your server or CDN logs.
- 2
Check each source IP against Anthropic's published list (claude.com/crawling/bots.json). A request from outside it is not Claude-SearchBot, whatever it says.
- 3
Block what fails the check at the firewall. A robots.txt rule only reaches crawlers that choose to read it.
Other crawlers from Anthropic
Each has its own token, and blocking one leaves the others untouched.
Frequently asked questions
Anthropic's crawler for search quality in Claude. Anthropic says disabling it prevents Claude from indexing a site's content for search, which may reduce the site's visibility and accuracy in Claude's search results.
Yes. Anthropic documents that Claude-SearchBot follows robots.txt, so a rule for its token is honoured.
Add a group for its token to robots.txt at the root of your site: "User-agent: Claude-SearchBot" followed by "Disallow: /". To close only part of the site, list those paths instead of "/". To enforce the block rather than request it, deny the IP addresses Anthropic publishes at your firewall.
Anthropic's AI answers stop finding your pages through it, so they cannot cite or link to you. If you want to keep your content out of training but stay in answers, block Anthropic's training token instead and leave Claude-SearchBot allowed.
Checked against Anthropic's documentation on 29 September 2026.
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